


A Different Kind Of Day

by apocryphile



Category: West Wing
Genre: Alternate Canon, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-01
Updated: 2012-05-01
Packaged: 2017-11-04 16:44:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/395998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apocryphile/pseuds/apocryphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Donna had been with Josh at Rosslyn? And what would have happened next?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Different Kind Of Day

**Author's Note:**

> This monster of a story began life as a throwaway plea for prompts one Friday night. I had to take a long-ish bus journey and I was worried I'd be bored. Little did I know... Over a month, and over 20,000 words later, I've re-surfaced from a parallel universe that's become very precious to me.  
> The prompt was: “If Donna had been at Rosslyn — and been the one to find Josh or been shot instead?” (I absolutely categorically couldn't bring myself to tackle the latter scenario. I have a hard enough time getting through the Gaza arc without copious quantities of hard liquor.)  
> For that, we have the lovely [notabadday](http://notabadday.tumblr.com/) to thank. She's single-handedly revitalised the West Wing fandom on Tumblr - the last few months have been a blast. And because she's so awesome, as a way of saying thank you, I decided to crank this up a notch - sprinkle some fairy dust on it, if you will... And so behold, [the beautiful front cover art](http://i48.tinypic.com/141sd3o.png), courtesy of the unspeakably talented [speakfree](http://speakfree.tumblr.com). If you make it to the end of the very long story, you'll find an equally stunning back cover!

Josh had given Donna the night off, but Zoey had begged her to come to Rosslyn, terrified of the moment where her irrepressible father would point her out to the crowd of thousands. It hadn’t taken much persuading, Donna loved hearing the President speak, and she was happy to offer the youngest First Daughter some friendly support. She knew that underneath her stubborn shell, Zoey was worried about having really upset Charlie.  
But when they arrived at the venue there were a million things to do. Promising to join her at the first opportunity, Donna had apologised to Zoey and dashed off to make copies of the report the President had just added a reference to in his speech, at the last minute, as usual. Josh had been surprised to see her darting around among the crowd of reporters, but had smiled wide when she’d scurried over and shooed Charlie into the auditorium so he could hear his suggestion being used. 

He came to find her when they got the good news about the shuttle, and she rushed straight up to Toby and hugged him, one of the few who would ever dare to, and then held on when she heard his breath catch. Lightly rubbing his back, she teased him in a whisper about getting over his astronaut envy until she heard him chuckle. When she released him, Leo was there.  
“Toby, if there’s somewhere else you’d rather be, everyone would understand.”  
Donna nodded encouragingly.  
“No, that’s OK. I should be here.”  
“Toby.”  
There was a long pause, and Donna silently willed him to accept the offer. She sometimes wondered whether Toby was lonely, and she hadn’t known whether to be relieved to discover he had a family or heartbroken to hear that they were so estranged. When Toby took a deep breath and lifted his hands to his heart, she knew they’d won him over. He nodded, his eyes conveying his gratitude, and walked off, speeding up as he approached the exit.  
Leo turned to Donna with a fond smile.  
“You’re not even supposed to be here, are you?”  
She grinned at him.  
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”  
“You’re a good girl, Donna. Would you please go and tell Josh that he is now, God help us, in charge back there?”  
“Yes sir.”  
Impulsively she squeezed his arm before walking away. Leo knew more about malfunctioning aircraft and dysfunctional families than the rest of them put together, and she worried about him, too.

Donna found her boss behind the last row of seats, high up in the auditorium, listening raptly as the President spoke about youth engagement. She brought him up to date in a whisper, but held him back when he tried to head backstage. “It’s all under control, Josh. Stay and listen.”  
As she settled in next to him, she felt his hand on her back, warm and steady. They listened together, shoulder to shoulder, until the President started teasing his daughter, and Donna remembered the original purpose of her attendance.  
“I should go be with Zoey. She’s been dreading this.”  
“Want me to come?”  
“No! You’ll just embarrass her more. You deal with Charlie. Between the two of us we should be able to get them to figure this out.”  
He bit back a crack about their utter unsuitability as relationship counsellors and waved her off with a grin. 

On her way down to the private box, Donna nearly crashed into Mandy, who wasn’t supposed to be there either. She was about to apologise and move on, when she noticed that the other woman looked pale and drawn. Forgetting her impatience with Mandy’s aggressive manner and bickering with Josh, Donna stopped.  
“Are you OK?”  
Mandy seemed surprised that Donna was even speaking to her.  
“I was looking for Toby.”  
That wasn’t much of an answer, but Mandy wasn’t much one for admitting weakness. Donna filled her in, and Mandy looked even more worried.  
“Josh is running the show now, he’s upstairs.”  
Mandy looked down at a slightly crumpled envelope in her hand, and then back at Donna. Her mouth set in a grim line and she shook her head.  
“Nevermind.”  
Giving up, Donna rushed on to find Zoey, arriving just as a roar of applause went up from the crowd. Gina ushered them out as the audience got their feet, cheering.  
They hurried towards the backstage area, with Gina doing her best to discourage any potential well-wishers and Zoey smiling and waving behind her back. They reached the area behind the stage at the same time as the President, and Zoey hugged her father and immediately began scolding him. Laughing, he kept an arm wrapped around her while he checked in with Josh and Leo, who quickly congratulated him and told him about the shuttle, and Toby’s departure.  
Donna hurried to help Carol and Bonnie sort through the mess in the press area, trying to determine what needed to return to the White House and what belonged to the venue. They wondered aloud to each other how long Toby would be gone for and whether they’d ever get to meet his brother the astronaut.  
“I wonder whether they look alike… can you picture Toby in a space suit?”  
They all dissolved into giggles, rushing to finish up and catch up with the departing staff.

Walking with the President’s entourage was a unique experience, Donna mused, as she scanned the small crowd ahead of her for Josh. She was getting used to it, but the urge to apologise to everyone they passed for getting in the way was still pretty overwhelming. She saw Charlie and Zoey talking animatedly, flanked by Sam and CJ, and spotted Josh just as he stepped to the side and stopped, waiting for her to catch up. He slung a friendly arm around her shoulders.  
“So, how’d you enjoy your night off?”  
She elbowed him in the ribs.  
“You’re lucky I was here, Joshua.”  
“Well, I know that. You still don’t get to count this as overtime.”  
“We don’t get paid overtime. It’d bankrupt the administration.”  
He laughed.  
“I’ll buy you dinner, though… if you’ll come back to the office and help me farm out Toby’s week?”  
She’d been going to do that anyway.  
“Deal.”  
“You’re the best.”  
“I am indeed.”  
He squeezed her shoulder.  
Everyone had slowed down as they approached the exit, letting the detail check one final time that the cars were ready and their route was clear. Donna’s breath caught when the doors swung open and they were met with a wall of noise and camera flashes. Instinctively, she tried to step away from Josh, but he held tight to her shoulder.  
“Josh.”  
He pouted.  
“I need you to protect me from the fans.”  
She shook her head in mock exasperation.  
“Your groupies will get straight online and start spreading gossip that you’re schtupping your assistant.”  
“Schtupping?”  
“Yes, Josh, it means—“  
“I know what it means! I just kind of wish you didn’t.”  
“I’m a talented linguist, Josh.”  
“I beg of you, Donna, don’t ever say that again. Or schtupping. Leave the Yiddish to the pros.”  
“The Yiddish pros? Like, Jewish people?”  
“Jewish people from New York and the, uh, New York-adjacent area.”  
“You’re an East Coast snob about Yiddish now?”  
He grinned at her.  
“I’m an East Coast snob about everything, Donna.”  
Everyone ahead of them had filed out, and suddenly they were through the door and outside. Donna made one final attempt to disentangle herself from her boss, wriggling away, unable to stop herself from smiling, but of course the cameras had already found them, and he just smirked straight at them, the impossible man. There was a click and a flash, and then another, and another. 

Then there was a gunshot, and then another, and another.

\---

There was a moment, a split second, probably less than that, of complete silence, before the screaming started. Donna felt Josh pushing her down and her panic surged when he shoved her roughly in his haste. She stumbled and hit the ground hard, blinded by her hair in her face, frantically reaching for him. She heard car doors slamming, shouts, the roar of an engine, and hoped against hope that the President was OK. Zoey, Charlie, Sam, CJ, they’d all been ahead of them, out in the open.  
Her hand made contact with the familiar fabric of Josh’s suit. She clutched a handful of the material and tugged. There was a gasp.  
She finally got her hair out of her eyes and looked up. Josh had sagged against the doorframe they’d just passed through, clutching his chest, his mouth open in surprise, his eyes wide with fear. Terror flooded her veins.  
“Josh?”  
As she scrambled up onto her knees and bent over him, he fell slowly sideways, and she just managed to support his head before he hit the ground. A vivid red stain flowered on his shirt from underneath his hands, right at the centre of his chest. He gasped again, struggling for breath.  
She screamed.  
As she felt her voice give out, she told herself she needed to be more specific. That was how to get Josh what he needed, like she did every day. She was good at providing clear, concise instructions. She gulped down a lungful of air.  
“We need help! Please, we need a doctor! He’s been shot! Please, we need help…”  
Her voice nearly deserted her but she gasped down a heaving breath and shouted again. “Please, somebody help us! Please, hurry…”  
When she saw a dark-suited figure turn and start to run towards them, she turned back and focused her attention on Josh, willing him to be OK. He blinked a few times and managed to fix his gaze on her. She covered his hands with hers, his blood slick under her fingers, and fought the urge to scream again.  
“It’s going to be OK, Josh, you’re OK, they’re coming, they’re going to take care of you, so hang on, OK? Please hang on, Josh, please…”  
She bent low, moving one hand up to his face, leaving a streak of red on his cheek.  
“Please, Josh, hang on.”  
He made a faint rasping noise, and she bent closer still. She felt sure that he shouldn’t be trying to talk, but she was desperate for any sign that his injury wasn’t as devastating as it looked.  
“You… you hurt?”  
“No, no, Josh, I’m OK, I’m fine. And you will be too, just hang on.”  
“Don’t leave me.”  
She clutched his fingers tighter as someone came up behind her and crouched next to Josh.  
“I’m not going to leave you, Josh, I’m staying right here, I’ll stay with you.”  
Strong hands released Donna’s grip on Josh’s fingers and ripped open his shirt. Donna moved out of the way, behind Josh’s head, stroking his face and whispering to him as a team of paramedics joined the agent already working on him. His eyes stopped focusing and drifted shut and she shook uncontrollably, trying not to jostle him but unable to let him go. She quickly assured the medics she herself was OK and gave them what information she could, her voice trembling, and then leaned back down to Josh.  
“Please, Josh please, just hang on…”  
“I gotta… I gotta…”  
His voice was barely audible and she didn’t hear what he said next as CJ and Sam ran up to them.  
“Oh my God, Josh! Oh my God!”  
CJ grabbed Donna, almost roughly, lifting her head and tugging at her sweater.  
“Are you OK, Donna, are you hurt too?”  
It was only then that Donna realised she was covered in blood. She shook her head, unable to speak, and turned back to Josh. After a moment she felt CJ’s weight against her back, kneeling behind her. As the medics placed an oxygen mask over Josh’s face, his eyes slowly closed, and she wailed in anguish. Someone handed CJ a blanket and Donna felt the scratchy fabric against her neck as a stretcher was wheeled over and she was gently but firmly pulled to her feet and out of the way.  
She was dimly aware of Sam wrapping his arms around her, but as she lost sight of Josh in the chaotic jumble of personnel and equipment, she felt her entire body go cold, her system shutting down as she slipped into shock.  
As if on autopilot, she followed the stretcher to the ambulance, sidestepping another medic who tried to check her over, and when he tried to stop her from boarding the rig, she just stopped, and waited while CJ shouted him down. Sam helped her climb aboard.  
“We’ll be right behind you, OK? We’re right here.”  
She nodded, and made her way on trembling legs through the chaos to a spot near Josh’s head. She longed to hold his hand but his arms were out of reach, strapped to the stretcher. His head was also secured, and slightly tipped back, but for now the oxygen mask was gone. When she leaned closer she could hear him struggling to breathe, a laboured, ugly, rasping sound, and her stomach clenched.  
“I’m here, Josh.”  
His eyes flickered towards her.  
“I’m here.”  
“…’kay.”  
It was faint, but it got her through the agonising drive, an eternity during which Josh worsened, and then rallied, and then worsened again. After whispering a few more words to him she’d had to move back, to leave room for the team working to stem the bleeding and keep his vitals up. She clutched the blanket around her shoulders like a talisman, remembering the feeling of his arm there, warm and solid, what already felt like an eternity ago. One of the medics periodically assured Josh that Donna was still there, but unable to lean close to him, she found that she couldn’t raise her voice far enough for him to hear her above the noises of the vehicle and the medical equipment.  
Still, he must have been aware she was there, because when they reached the hospital and piled into the ER, he lost track of her and panicked. It was the most alert he’d been but also the most agitated. She stumbled unsteadily on leaden feet, trying to keep up, her heart breaking as he asked for her. And then—  
“I gotta get to Wisconsin… please, she’s in Wisconsin, I gotta go get her, she left, she went back to him… I’m gonna go get her, I gotta get to Wisconsin…”  
Summoning the remaining shreds of her strength, she pushed past the doctor and nurses and leaned over so he could see her above him. She felt a surge of hope when he focused on her face and smiled faintly.  
“I came back, Josh. I’m here. You didn’t need to come and get me, I came back. I’ll be right here the whole time, OK?”  
“…’kay.”  
“Josh, I…”  
The stretcher turned and wheeled into a trauma room, and gentle hands stopped Donna in her tracks.  
“You can’t go in there, honey.”  
Donna shook herself free and rushed up to the window, peering through the glass, just as someone lifted a blood-soaked dressing from Josh’s chest. She pressed both hands to her mouth, but didn’t make a sound. 

\---

The First Lady and CJ between them managed to coax Donna to change out of her bloodstained clothes into a set of borrowed scrubs, and to let someone look at her badly scraped hands and knees. She moved like she was underwater, pale and drawn with red-rimmed eyes, but even when Josh was wheeled up to surgery in a swarm of doctors and equipment, she didn’t cry. The news that the President was going to be OK even elicited a tiny smile, but by then she hadn’t spoken in over an hour, and Sam and CJ exchanged worried looks behind her back. Abbey explained what was happening with Josh, and Donna just nodded carefully. She sat, back straight, the knuckles of her clasped hands white with tension, staring vacantly at a spot in front of her feet. Agents, doctors and junior staff drifted in and out with updates or questions, Charlie paced and muttered to himself under his breath, occasionally cursing more audibly, and Sam wrote and discarded statement after statement until CJ laid her hand over his.  
“Sam, I’ve got it, it’s OK.”  
There was a clatter from the hallway and Toby burst in.  
“How is he?”  
CJ spoke first.  
“The President’s going to be fine.”  
Toby heaved a sigh of relief, opened his mouth as if to speak, but then closed his eyes for a moment, lifting his hand to his mouth and then to his cheek.  
“I came back as soon as I heard. I tried to get them to turn the damn plane around but they wouldn’t listen.” He rubbed the side of his head. “They wouldn’t even let me use my phone, I told them this piece of junk couldn’t possibly interfere with their navigation but…”  
It took CJ a moment to work out that the rustling next to her was Donna standing up, after being so still for so long.  
“Toby… Josh was hit.”  
Her voice wavered as she walked over to him, looking at him pleadingly as if hoping he could fix it. Instinctively, he reached out to her, and rested his hands on the side of her arms.  
“Hit? I don’t understand…” He looked first at her, and then around the room at the stricken faces of his friends. When he spoke again, he faltered. “Hit with what?”  
“He was shot.”  
Toby’s hand rose to his mouth again, his eyes wide with shock.  
“Is it serious?”  
“Yes.” She gasped for breath. “It’s critical.” She paused for a moment and squeezed her eyes shut, as if blocking out the reality of her words. When she spoke again her tone was eerily expressionless. “The bullet collapsed his lung and damaged a major artery.” Stunned, Toby stepped closer, searching her face, struggling to find the words to comfort her.  
“Donna, Josh is the most stubborn person I know. I’m sure he’s going to be OK. It’s going to be OK.” When she didn’t react, his expression softened. “Come here.”  
Toby slowly folded his arms around her back, holding her gingerly as if she might shatter. Over her shoulder his eyes asked a thousand questions. CJ just shrugged helplessly, and Toby bent his head towards Donna and tightened his grip. He murmured reassurances to her until she squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and pulled away. She turned to CJ.  
“I want to see him.”  
CJ scrambled to her feet, and as she approached, Toby held out his hand to her. She twined her fingers with his and took a deep breath before answering.  
“Donna, I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”  
Donna bristled, and she spoke in a scornful tone she would never have used to anyone in the West Wing under any other circumstances.  
“CJ, I was there when he was shot. I think I can cope.”  
Sam spoke up from across the room.  
“I’ll go with you, Donna. I’d like to see him too.”

They stood, shoulder to shoulder, both unsteady on their feet, watching the intricate medical ballet unfolding at an achingly slow pace behind the glass. For the most part, Josh was obscured by the team of surgeons working diligently to save him, and Sam and Donna whispered to each other in between fretful peeks into the OR. Sam told her the story of how he joined Bartlet’s campaign, and she couldn’t help but smile fondly at Josh being so utterly, unapologetically Josh.  
“We were so stupid, we just took off for New Hampshire with the clothes on our backs. I basically walked out on Lisa and Josh quit his job from a payphone at Grand Central, so we swapped – he called her to get her to send me some clothes, and I called Hoynes’ office to tell them where to forward his last paycheck. If we hadn’t won I’m not sure he’d have ever worked in DC again. We were so… rude!”  
Sam looked equal parts horrified at his own behaviour and delighted that their recklessness had paid off. Donna squeezed his hand.  
“It all felt a bit like that when I arrived. A bunch of crazy kids winging it. Josh… he knew all this stuff, but it was like he’d never actually had to, like, be a grownup before.”  
Sam smiled at her wistfully.  
“He still doesn’t. He has you for that.”  
She gave a tiny gasp of a laugh, and laid her head on his shoulder. After a long pause, a hesitant whisper reached his ears from somewhere next to his chin.  
“He’s gonna be OK, right, Sam? He has to be OK. I don’t know what I’d do without him…”  
She started to shake, and Sam wrapped first one arm and then the other around her, keeping her steady and praying under his breath for the first time in as long as he could remember.

Zoey found them sitting on the floor, clutching hands, whispering to each other about anniversaries and flowers and Wisconsin. She peeked into the operating room but quickly turned away, terrified by what she saw.  
“Donna? My Dad wants to see you.”  
It took Donna a moment to equate Zoey’s Dad with the President, and she nearly tripped over her own feet standing up too fast. She pressed her hands to her forehead and Sam reached out a steadying hand, but Donna didn’t take it. She shook herself and then looked Zoey up and down and hugged her quickly.  
“Are you OK, sweetie? I didn’t ask, I’m sorry, I…”  
“I’m alright.” Zoey’s voice was very small. “I’m so sorry about Josh. I didn’t realise at first, they didn’t tell us…”  
Donna gently smoothed Zoey’s hair, tucking a stray lock behind her ear.  
“It’s OK, really. You were with your Dad.” Donna drew in a breath and straightened her back. “You said he wanted to see me?”  
“He’s really worried.”  
“He should be resting.”  
“You try telling him that.”  
The two young women exchanged a knowing smile, and Sam slipped away as they set off towards the President’s room, Zoey’s ever-present shadows, their numbers tripled tonight, forming a silent protective swarm around them.

“Five minutes, Jed.” The First Lady turned to Donna. “Five minutes.”  
“Yes ma’am.”  
Dr Bartlet’s tone was stern, but she came and stood next to Donna and laid a gentle hand on her back.  
“How are you feeling, sir?”  
“Donnatella, sweetheart… I’m feeling rather henpecked right about now. How are you doing?”  
“I… I’m not hurt, sir.”  
“And I thank God for that.” He scrutinised her face for a moment, having noted that she didn’t actually say she was alright, but didn’t press her. “They tell me Josh is in surgery?”  
“Yes sir. They think it’s going to be another six hours.”  
The President exhaled sharply, but quickly composed his features into a grin.  
“If a sickly old coot like me can survive getting shot by a bunch of crazed lunatics, then it’ll be a walk in the park for a stubborn kid like our Joshua, am I right?”  
Donna managed a watery smile.  
“I hope so, sir.” She cursed her treacherous, tremulous voice, determined not to crumble in front of this man she respected so fiercely, who had been injured too, and who was as worried as she was about Josh.  
The President gazed at her searchingly, and then turned to his wife for a moment, as though looking for an answer about something. What he looked at Donna again, she found even more concern in his eyes.  
“Come here, sweetheart.”  
Hesitantly, she leaned in, and he kissed her on the forehead.  
“I love him like a son, you know.”  
“I know, sir.” She was unable to keep the anguish out of her voice.  
Jed opened his mouth again but Abbey glared at him, and he kept his own counsel. Donna took a deep breath and spoke again.  
“He loves you too, sir. And he’s so proud to work for you. And I know…” She swallowed and tried to compose herself. “I know he’d rather be the one hurt worse. That he’d be glad you’re OK, and Zoey and Charlie and everyone…”  
She trailed off, lifting a hand to her mouth, on the verge of tears and blushing at having spoken out of turn.  
“And you, Donna. He would be… he will be, when he wakes up, after I’m done kicking his ass for scaring us, he will be so glad you’re OK.”  
Donna nodded, unable to speak, and Zoey took her hand as Leo walked into the room. He smiled at her and touched her arm as he passed but went straight to the President, concern sharpening his avuncular features.  
“Mr President?”  
“I wanna see him.”  
Leo turned to the First Lady, torn between concern for the President and his own urge to get to Josh.  
“Is he okay?”  
Abbey pursed her lips. The President tried to push himself up and failed, breathing hard. Next to Donna, Zoey stated to cry quietly, and Donna slipped an arm around her shoulders.  
“Please. Help me to the door.”  
Leo shook his head.  
“You should stay in bed.”  
The President pulled himself up again and managed to stay upright. When he spoke, he was clearly making an effort to sound stronger.  
“Charlie brought me some clothes.” He turned to Abbey. “Please let me see him.”  
When the Doctor nodded to the First Lady, Donna released a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. Suddenly it seemed terribly important that Leo and the President see Josh. She stepped out of the room as Abbey picked up the pile of clothes Charlie had left on a chair, and found Ron Butterfield and another, familiar-looking agent in the hallway.  
Ron laid a hand on her shoulder and looked closely at her, as though checking her face for injuries.  
“How are you doing, Donna?”  
She found it easy to answer him honestly.  
“I’ll be better when Josh wakes up.”  
He nodded, lightly squeezing the top of her arm.  
“We all will be.”  
He turned to the man next to him.  
“Donna, this is Simon Donovan.”  
And suddenly she recognised him.  
“You were there. You helped Josh.”  
“Yes, ma’am.”  
Her brow furrowed. She wanted to tell him not to call her ma’am, that she didn’t want to be a grownup right now, didn’t know how to shoulder this burden. She wanted to be Donnatella again, but for that, she needed Josh to wake up.  
“Please, call me Donna.”  
He just nodded.  
“Thank you for helping us.”  
“I’m glad I was able to. I was hoping I could look in on him.”  
She turned back to Ron, confused.  
“Of course, he’s upstairs, you can just… I mean surely they’d let you…”  
Ron nodded slightly.  
“We’ve been asked to consider you his next of kin.”  
“Oh!” Donna felt herself blushing and she looked away, flustered. She had no idea whether this was a wish Josh had expressed, a result of her having been with him, or Leo’s doing. She told herself to keep her feelings in check, but realised with a shock that she no longer cared much about what anyone else thought. The only thing that mattered was that Josh would be OK. The door to the President’s room opened and she took a deep breath, trying to compose herself.  
“Agent Donovan, the President is going to see him now. Perhaps you could wait a little, give him a few minutes?”  
Both agents seemed reassured by the newfound confidence in her voice.  
“Absolutely.”  
He started to turn away, but stopped and looked at her again.  
“I’m very glad you’re OK, Donna. I hope once Mr Lyman’s out of surgery you’ll take some time to talk to someone about what happened.”  
The thought hadn’t even occurred to her. She opened her mouth and closed it again, half focused on Zoey who was waiting in the doorway.  
Ron chimed in.  
“He’s right, Donna. We have people you can speak to. You’ve been through an ordeal.”  
She closed her eyes for a moment.  
“It’s not over, Ron.”  
He laid his hand over hers.  
“I know. But it will be.”

When they reached the hallway outside the OR, Toby, and CJ, now back from the White House, and Sam and Mrs Landingham were standing silently behind the glass. When Mrs Landingham saw the President her face lit up, but she immediately began scolding him for being out of bed. Ignoring her admonishments, he squeezed her hand, and smiled fondly at his staff. CJ leaned in and kissed his cheek, and then wrapped her arm around Donna’s waist as they all stepped back, letting Leo and President Bartlet approach the window alone. They both slumped slightly as they took in the sight of Josh surrounded by tubes, equipment and surgeons. The President lifted a hand to the glass.  
“Look what happened.”  
They stood in silence for a few minutes, willing the endless procedure to be successful, wishing Josh would sit up and start cracking wise. 

First CJ, then Sam and finally Toby went back to the White House again, and Zoey was ordered to bed. Donna was sitting, alone, on the floor outside the OR where the interminable procedure had just been prolonged yet again, when Charlie appeared. He walked like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and didn’t so much as sit next to her as drop to the floor. She laid a gentle hand on his back.  
“It’s not your fault, Charlie.”  
He was silent for a while. Then, “Maybe so, but if I hadn’t been there, it wouldn’t have happened.”  
“Don’t say that. You belong here. I mean, with us, with the President.”  
“What if Josh…”  
“Don’t. I started thinking like that earlier and that’s no good to him. We’re here so we can see him when he wakes up, and then the President’s going to kick his ass.”  
Charlie smiled weakly. They didn’t speak anymore, but he found her hand and held it tightly as the morning sun dappled the hospital corridor with light.  
Margaret approached quietly, and they both jumped, startled, when she bent over them.  
“Donna, Josh’s Mom will be here soon.”  
Donna looked up at her, and then down at her feet, and then over at Charlie. She had no idea what she was expected to do. The Secret Service regarded her as next of kin, which was confusing enough, but she wasn’t family, wasn’t his girlfriend, and she’d never met this woman before in her life. Was she expected to be waiting to meet her? To give up her place at Josh’s side? She suddenly felt exhausted, but didn’t resist as Margaret helped her to her feet.  
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to… I mean is there something I’m supposed to…”  
Margaret hugged her quickly.  
“Go wash your face, and I’ll find you something to eat. Mrs Lyman wants to see you. It’s going to be OK, you can stay here as long as you need.”  
Donna nodded mutely, glad to hand over control to someone else. It suddenly occurred to her that Margaret would have had to navigate visits to hospital and rehab, quite soon after she started working for Leo. She squeezed her hand gratefully. 

\---

Back at the White House, the morning papers sat overlooked as CJ scrambled to prepare for her latest briefing. The hubbub of the West Wing was familiar and reassuring, but her ordinary routine was a distant memory. Confident she had a good idea of the headlines, she didn’t see the Post until Carol lifted a folder and gasped.  
Under the 60-point headline, the photo was not the one that had accompanied the lead article when it was published online overnight, a dramatic shot of the President’s limo speeding away in a whirlwind of blue and red lights. This was a simple portrait, which could have featured alongside a political profile, or even a wedding announcement. Illuminated by flash in the emergency exit doorway they’d just followed the President out of, Josh and Donna stood side by side. They were both smiling so wide, it really could have been an engagement picture, but CJ was used to seeing them both look like that, and loved them for it. Donna was looking slightly to the side, but Josh was smirking straight at the camera, his arm wrapped tightly around his assistant’s shoulder.  
CJ’s breath caught.  
“This was right before it happened?”  
Beside her, Carol wiped her eyes and nodded. CJ laid a hand on her assistant’s arm.  
“Hey, it’s going to be OK. Josh is too damn stubborn to die.”  
Carol nodded again, blinking back tears, and CJ squeezed her eyes tightly shut for a moment before looking at the paper again.  
“Well this is not going to be good.”  
Scanning the caption and the rest of the page – this being the Post, it was sober and factual, but by now the image would be everywhere, and CJ had no illusions about what other publications would be running alongside it – CJ cursorily patted her hair and straightened her shirt, and then squared her shoulders and headed into the briefing.  
To their credit, the pool waited until she’d confirmed that Josh’s surgery was still going smoothly, and then the floodgates opened. CJ gritted her teeth and stonewalled them as best she could, almost hoping they’d go back to the 25th amendment. After repeating Donna’s full job title for the third time she threw up her hands and stormed off the podium, knowing full well she’d just made things worse but too exasperated to care. 

As soon as she reasonably could, CJ rushed back to the hospital, dodging questions all the way to her car and again as she struggled through the scrum outside GW. She was standing in the empty hallway outside the OR, panicking, before she realised that the surgery must finally be over. Making herself take deep, steadying breaths, she hurried off to find the recovery room.  
She rounded a corner and saw Leo helping the President, who was already walking more steadily, through an open door. She slipped in behind them, and found several doctors, conferring in quiet voices, around a bed where an unrecognisable Josh lay, finally free of the frightening surgical paraphernalia but unnaturally still and uncharacteristically hirsute, his skin drained of all colour. A woman she assumed was Josh’s Mom was perched nervously on the edge of a chair, staring intently at her son, one slender hand resting on the edge of the bed. Behind her, Donna was frozen in an attitude of such worry that it took CJ’s breath away. Already pale, the young woman was absolutely ghostly, eyes wide, hands clenched over her heart. It was just dawning on CJ that she hadn’t seen Donna cry all night when the President bent over Josh and she heard the faint rasp of an indecipherable whisper, and Leo’s face broke into a wide smile as his deputy’s eyes fluttered open.  
“He said, What’s next?”  
Donna took one step forward, lifting a trembling hand to her mouth. The President put an arm around her as Mrs Lyman got her feet.  
“Joshua?”  
“Mom?”  
Josh’s voice was barely audible, and completely unrecognisable, scratchy and laboured. CJ’s throat clenched as she listened to him struggle to breathe. He blinked, trying to look around him.  
“What happened? Where’s Donna?”  
“I’m right here, Josh.”  
She bent down, her long blonde hair spilling over her shoulders, and gingerly touched his cheek.  
“Hey.”  
She smiled, her eyes filling with tears.  
“Hey.”  
His eyes searched her face for a long moment.  
“Are you OK?”  
She nodded.  
“Yeah,” she whispered. “I am now.”  
He smiled faintly.  
“I got shot, huh.”  
“Yeah.”  
He thought for a moment.  
“Cool.”  
The quiet laughter that rippled around the room loosened something in CJ’s chest, and she breathed easier, finally starting to believe they’d really got him back.  
“Is everyone else OK?”  
The President spoke up.  
“I got shot too, Josh, this isn’t all about you. But I’m just fine, and no one else was hurt.”  
Josh breathed a ragged sigh of relief.  
“Mom?”  
“Yes, bubbala?”  
He smiled at the old term of endearment.  
“Don’t worry about me, OK?”  
“In your dreams, Joshua.”  
“Look after Donna for me?”  
Donna started to sob at that and Mrs Lyman reached for her hand as she replied.  
“Always, my darling.”  
Josh returned his gaze to his assistant.  
“Don’t cry, it’s OK, I’m OK…”  
She gulped down a big breath and tried valiantly to stem the flow of her tears.  
Ever so slowly, he lifted his hand, and she wrapped her fingers around his. The effort seemed to be all he could muster.  
“I’m tired.”  
“I know, it’s OK.” She looked to the doctor and he nodded. “You can go back to sleep, we just wanted to make sure you were OK.”  
“I’m OK…” his voice faded.  
Donna gently laid his hand back on the bed as Josh’s laboured breathing evened out. She turned to CJ for the first time, and stumbled across the room and fell into her arms, weeping with relief. CJ rubbed her back, feeling tears rise to her own eyes, and smiled over Donna’s shoulder as Leo began firmly coaxing the President back to his own room. The doctor looked around the group and settled on Mrs Lyman, who looked like a changed woman now that her beloved boy had woken up, to give his assessment. CJ stroked Donna’s hair and murmured reassurances as the surgeon explained that what they’d just seen was about as good an outcome as could have been hoped for.  
“He knew what happened to him, he asked and answered questions.” The doctor shook his head with a smile. “He made a joke. That’s remarkable.”  
“Not for Josh,” offered CJ, and Donna straightened up against her and smiled. Wiping her eyes she turned to the doctor.  
“How long before he can go home?”  
“It could be up to a couple of weeks, and he’s going to need a lot of rest and physical therapy after that. But given this type of injury, this is a very good outcome. We’re very happy with his vitals right now, but we’ll want to monitor him closely.”  
Donna nodded, and let out a big breath. CJ squeezed her shoulders one last time and then stepped over to introduce herself to Josh’s Mom.  
“I’m Claudia Jean Cregg, I’m the Press Secretary—I mean, I work with Josh. I’m sorry we’re meeting under such awful circumstances. Do you have a place to stay, Mrs Lyman?”  
“Please call me Rachel, dear. And yes. Leo has reserved a room at the hotel where I gather he’s been living.”  
She looked disapproving.  
“Would you like me to drive you back there? You must be exhausted.”  
“That’s kind of you, but I’d like to stay a bit longer.” She looked at Donna.  
“You should take Donnatella home, though.” CJ smiled at her use of Donna’s full name, obviously learned from Josh. Donna shot an anxious look towards the bed, clearly reluctant to leave Josh’s side, but CJ nodded firmly.  
They paused to call the West Wing with the good news. CJ put Donna on the phone and she promptly burst into tears again, clutching the cellphone to her cheek and hiccupping. CJ patiently rubbed her back, waiting for the sobs to subside, and gently took the phone from her. When she lifted it to her ear all she heard were a chorus of sniffles, and she imagined Sam and Toby huddled over the speakerphone, both pretending not to cry.  
“Guys?”  
Unsurprisingly, Toby found his voice first.  
“Keep her away from the press.”  
“No kidding. I’m taking her home. I’ll make a quick statement here, can you get ready for a briefing in an hour or so?”  
She hung up, and took Donna by the shoulders.  
“I need you to wait for me here for a couple of minutes, OK? And I need you not to speak to anyone. Do you understand?”  
Confused, Donna nodded, and CJ steered her towards a chair, took a deep breath, and went off to face the press. 

She informed them that Josh was awake, that the President had seen him, that the doctors were happy and that she’d have more for them soon. She refused to take any questions and walked back inside to a chorus of frenzied shouting.

Retrieving Donna, who had visibly wilted in the meantime, the long night’s exhaustion finally catching up to her, CJ collared the nearest Secret Service Agent and explained they needed to get to her car without being bothered.  
“Yes, ma’am.”  
He murmured into his sleeve and within minutes they’d been joined by a small entourage of men in suits. They made it to the car in no time at all, the throng parting like butter, but CJ’s stomach twisted with worry as flash after flash recorded Donna, tear-stained and dazed, surrounded by a phalanx of the President’s bodyguards. She’d succeeded in protecting her from aggressive questions, but she’d just amplified the story, and she dreaded to think what would happen when Donna returned to the hospital, alone, in what she was sure would only be a handful of hours. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to add to Donna’s distress, and hastily slid the newspaper she’d brought under the seat before Donna could see it.

Donna badly wanted to go back to the hospital, but when CJ sat her down in her own kitchen and started rummaging around for food, she realised that her body felt like lead. She sat motionless as CJ hastily assembled sandwiches and poured glasses of milk. She chewed and swallowed automatically, smiling at CJ’s long, rambling story about the first time she met Josh, squeezed into the back of a rental car in New Hampshire, getting into an argument about how to refer to the other candidates in the race that re-emerged occasionally to this day. After promising CJ that she would actually sleep, and that she wouldn’t watch the news – accepting without question the explanation that it would be too upsetting to revisit what had happened - she collapsed onto her couch and called the hospital. A friendly nurse assured her that Josh was still asleep.  
She peeled off her clothes, surprised to find that she was wearing the spare scrubs she’d entirely forgotten about borrowing, and leaned against the wall in the shower, letting the hot water pound onto her. When she realised there were still traces of dried blood on her arms, she squeezed her eyes shut and scrubbed as hard as she could bear, only daring to look again when she was sure she’d scraped it all off. Giving her wet hair a cursory rub, she stumbled into her bedroom and collapsed onto her bed, a fresh round of tears welling up in her eyes. Curling into a tight ball, she cried herself to sleep.

\---

“Go away.”  
Danny trailed behind CJ as she stalked out of the press room, many of his peers still shouting questions even as she turned into the hallway.  
“CJ.”  
“Go away.”  
“CJ, I didn’t say a word in there.”  
“And from what I hear you haven’t been saying a word to get anyone to back off either.”  
“What’s the point? They know he’s my friend.”  
“Well he’s my friend too, dammit.”  
“I know that. That’s what I want to talk to you about.”  
She slowed to a stop and turned, wearily, to face him.  
“What.”  
“Don’t use yourself as an example.”  
“What?”  
“When you say that Josh puts his arm around any of his friends all the time. Don’t use yourself as an example.”  
“I don’t want to drag anyone else into this.”  
“Yes, but…”  
“But what, Danny!?!”  
“There are rumours. Not as persistent as the ones about Donna, but—“  
“They think I’m sleeping with him?!?”  
Several passing staffers stopped in their tracks and turned to stare, and Danny grabbed the press secretary by the elbow and practically shoved her into the nearest office – Sam’s. He was working intently on something and hushed Danny without looking up when he tried to explain their incursion, so CJ got back to the point.  
“People think I’m sleeping with Josh?”  
Sam’s head popped up.  
“Was sleeping, past tense. Not right before the shooting, a while back.”  
CJ narrowed her eyes at him.  
“Daniel, do you think I slept with Josh?”  
Danny laughed.  
“Claudia Jean, I’ve known Josh since college. If he had slept with you, make no mistake, every last person in DC would have heard about it, from him personally.”  
His smile faded.  
“Just mention someone innocuous, is all I’m saying.”  
“Like who?”  
Sam piped up from behind them.  
“You can say me if you want.”  
“No.”  
Danny cut in so quickly CJ’s eyebrows shot up.  
“You’re kidding?”  
“I wish I was. It gets more traction than the one about you.”  
“Wait. People think I’ve slept with Josh?”  
“’fraid so, buddy.”  
“Huh.”  
Sam seemed remarkably calm. CJ huffed in frustration.  
“For expediency’s sake, Danny, would you please enlighten us, who among Josh’s friends is he not rumoured to be sleeping or have slept with?”  
“Actually, the question is, who among Josh’s friends is he not rumoured to be sleeping with and around who’s shoulders he has been seen – or better still, photographed – to place his arm.”  
“Wait, I’ve got it – it’s perfect!”  
Sam jumped up from behind his desk and grabbed a photo off the wall. Nearly tripping over his own feet in his enthusiasm, he hurried to show it to them.  
It was a group shot, taken the night they won the election. Almost no one was looking at the camera – Sam and CJ were dancing, Leo and the President were deep in conversation, Donna was fixing Zoey’s hair with a champagne flute in one hand – but in the midst of it all, beaming at the photographer, unlit cigars held aloft, were Josh and Toby, arms wrapped tightly around each others’ shoulders.  
CJ smiled wistfully for a moment.  
“I love this photo.” She looked up at Danny, and her expression hardened. She shoved it at him, frame and all, and flung open the door. Before walking away, she turned, and fixed him with a stern look.  
“I don’t want to hear any more about this ridiculous story. Josh got shot, he’s going to be OK but he’s got a long recovery ahead of him, the President got shot, for heaven’s sake, can we talk about that maybe? Let’s move on.”  
Sam and Danny exchanged worried looks as she strode off.  
“Yeah. Right.”  
Danny walked up to the desk, where another copy of the Post sat atop a precarious pile of folders. They occasionally ran colour images but they’d printed the picture of Josh and Donna in black and white, and the effect was quite stunning.  
“It really is a lovely photo.”  
“They make a lovely couple,” Sam replied quietly.  
“I know.” Danny’s tone was sad. In his mind, the reality was worse than a covert affair. The thought that his friends were denying themselves the joy of building a life together because it was not politically expedient, made him loathe his profession and everyone who worked in it.

Donna awoke with a shudder, drenched in sweat and shaking, gunfire and screams ringing in her ears. She shook her head, trying to banish the images of Josh, terrified and bleeding, and the sound of her inarticulate screaming. Gasping for breath, she scrabbled on her nightstand, knocking books and candles to the ground until she got a hold of the phone. Dialling the hospital number that she’d committed to memory like a lifeline, she threw back the covers and started pulling clothes out of her dresser. She’d slept a little over two hours, and even when the same nurse, sounding surprised to hear from her again so soon, confirmed that Josh was still asleep and that his vitals were still good, she continued to pack, preparing to spend as long in the ward as she’d be allowed to get away with.

She thought about going to Josh’s apartment, but reasoned he wasn’t yet likely to need much from home and didn’t want to delay her return any further. She told herself that it was high time that Mrs Lyman checked into her hotel and get some sleep, but in reality it was much simpler: she needed to see Josh.

When she arrived at the hospital, she stopped in her tracks when she saw the huge crowd of photographers and camera crews by the main entrance. Hoping to avoid them, she turned towards the ER, which she dimly remembered passing through what felt like a lifetime ago. What she found instead set her off crying again. Along the walkway from one wing of GW to the other, well-wishers had left reams of cards, flowers, candles and ribbons. Many of them were addressed to the President, and the magnitude of last night’s events began to fully dawn on Donna, who shivered at the thought of how much worse it could have been. But it was the messages for Josh that moved her to her core, and she bent to look more closely, one hand pressed to her heart. She barely heard the now familiar click of a camera shutter. She straightened up to find the press scrum heading her way and recoiled, but before they could reach her, a familiar silver-haired figure appeared by her elbow and guided her confidently towards the entrance.  
“Agent Donovan. Thank you.”  
“Anytime.”  
He nodded at her with a small smile, but as soon as the doors had closed on the media frenzy, he was gone.

Donna had rushed straight past the nurses station before realising one of them was calling to her. She backtracked and apologised, out of breath.  
“We’ve moved Mr Lyman upstairs to a regular room.”  
“Is he awake?”  
“He stirred when we were moving him, but not really. That’s not a cause for concern but they’ll need to wake him in a little bit to do some checks.”  
Donna nodded and followed the nurse’s directions to the new ward, walking more slowly now, lost in thought. As she moved along the hallways, she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, summoning a new sense of resolve. Josh was out of danger, and they had a job to do now: get him better. This new room was their temporary headquarters, and she would organise it, and their time, for maximum efficiency. It might have taken a large team of highly skilled and trained medical professionals to bring Josh back to her, but now, he really just needed looking after, and there was nothing she did better. Alone in the elevator, she nodded to herself, already making lists in her head.

\---

She found the room in semi darkness, quiet except for the noise of the monitors. Mrs Lyman was dozing in a chair, and the first of what Donna felt sure would be many flowers and cards were haphazardly assembled along the windowsill. Moving as quietly as she could, Donna approached the bed, drinking in the welcome sight of Josh resting peacefully. She resisted the urge to touch him, not wanting to disturb his restorative sleep until it was absolutely necessary.  
“You need to shave,” she whispered to him.  
She lowered her duffel bag to the floor by an empty chair, and slipped off her shoes to silence her footsteps, moving first to the window where she quickly sorted through the cards and flowers, arranging them more neatly and making a note of who they were from. Then she walked from one monitor to the next, trying to make sense of the lights and readouts, committing the figures to memory so she could keep track of any changes. Finally she stepped into the tiny bathroom, and scrutinised her face in the mirror. Shaking her head as if in disappointment with herself, she fetched her washbag from among her things and began to tidy herself up, yanking the snarls out of her hair and trying to mask the dark circles under her reddened eyes. When she was satisfied with her appearance, she slipped her shoes back on, and went to wake Mrs Lyman.

As she opened her eyes and the memories of the day came rushing back, the older woman looked so upset that Donna’s heart ached for her, and she crouched in front of her and waited for her to compose herself, smiling reassuringly.

“You should go and check in to the hotel and lie down for a bit. I’ll stay with him.”  
Rachel Lyman smiled at the transformed young woman in front of her. This was the Donna her son had described, awe and affection vying for dominance in his voice, the quietly capable, quick-thinking, caring woman she trusted implicitly to keep her wayward boy in check. It was seeing Donna’s face when she arrived at the hospital the night before that had truly frightened her. Leo had been stubbornly cheerful, and unable to hide his relief at the relative straightforwardness of the President’s condition, and the rhythmic motions of the surgeons behind the glass had meant very little to her, but Donna’s pale face, huge eyes and almost otherwordly stillness, the slowness of her reactions whenever she was spoken to, had made manifest a mother’s worst fears. She was determined to honour her promise to her son and take care of this slip of a girl who’d come to hold such an important place in his life, but seeing her now, Mrs Lyman felt confident Donna would be quite alright entirely of her own volition.  
“Thank you dear. He’ll be glad to see you when he wakes up.”  
Donna smiled, and picked up the phone to call Margaret and ask her to have a car sent over. The familiar, everyday task was like putting on an old favourite pair of jeans, and she heard her voice getting stronger as they quickly discussed the details.  
“How are you doing, Donna? CJ said you’d be sleeping.”  
“I slept a little. I wanted to get back here.”  
“Of course. I’ll come by later, OK?”  
Donna smiled, and rattled off a list of things from the office for Margaret to bring. She was glad when her friend didn’t protest. The two devoted, hardworking assistants understood each other very well. 

Donna busied herself reading Josh’s cards, giving his Mom some space to check on her son before she left. She heard a murmur of what she thought might have been Yiddish, and felt a pang as she remembered Josh joking about the arcane language only moments before their worlds turned upside down. She tried to suppress the thought that those might have been his last words, but couldn’t keep the memory of his irrepressible smirk – or the sensation of his warm strong arm around her shoulders – from replaying in her mind. 

She said her goodbyes to Mrs Lyman, promising to call with any news and urging her to rest for as long as she needed. Impulsively, she hugged her, and held tight, and as she pulled back, paused to kiss her papery soft cheek. Josh’s Mom smiled warmly at that, and squeezed her hands before leaving, with a promise to return before dinnertime. 

Donna turned back to the bed and picked out the chair closest to Josh’s head. She sat, and watched him sleep, drawing more comfort from the steady rise and fall of his chest than she’d ever thought possible. She let the memories of the previous day wash over her, unable to quite fathom that it had not been even 24 hours since the shooting. She could picture his face as he teased her about causing a scandal, and his gleeful, exaggeratedly smug tone as he crowed about being a snob. Suddenly, the notion that this ridiculous man could have uttered those words as his last was irresistibly funny, and she laughed out loud. Surprised at herself, she clamped her hands over her mouth, casting a worried look towards Josh, but it was too late: he was waking up. She leaned over him and he smiled as his eyes fluttered open. She pressed the call button for the nurse.  
“Do that again.”  
His voice was even fainter than it had been earlier, probably because of how long he’d now gone without drinking anything. There was a cup on the nightstand but she opted to wait for a nurse to decide what was best.  
“Do what?”  
He smiled wider.  
“Laugh… I could…” he trailed off for a moment and she leaned closer, smoothing his hair down. “…listen to that all day.”  
She smiled fondly.  
“I was laughing at you, you ridiculous man.”  
“Got shot… not funny.”  
“No, but you were being funny right before you got shot.”  
A nurse appeared beside her and Donna straightened up.  
“Well hello there, Mr Lyman. It’s good to see you awake.”  
“Call… call me Josh.”  
“Well thank you. My name is Kirsty. Would you like some water, Josh?”  
He nodded, and the cheerful nurse reached for the cup.  
“You must be Donna.”  
Surprised, Donna nodded.  
“Could you do this for me while I take a look at our vitals here?”  
“I… of course.”  
Glad to be able to help, Donna took the cup and positioned the straw next to Josh’s mouth. He drank easily enough, but coughed after a couple of mouthfuls, and the look of pain and panic that shot through his features left her frozen with fear. Kirsty was back in an instant.  
“Alright. Nice steady breath. There you go.”  
Donna took a step back as Josh fought to steady his breathing, her heart thumping in her chest. She watched helplessly as the nurse moved him gently to a more upright position, slowly gave him some more water, and then went back to looking at the monitors. After a moment, Kirsty noticed her hands shaking.  
“You need to sit down, honey?”  
Donna shook her head, but couldn’t make herself move back to the bed. Josh gave her a worried look.  
“Donna?” His voice was even raspier now after the coughing and steeled herself to get back on track and stop scaring him. Before she could summon the composure to ask the nurse any questions, Toby walked in.  
He made straight for the bed, his perennially melancholy countenance brightening as he saw Josh was awake, but even as he bent over Josh he reached out a hand to Donna. She took it gratefully, and moved over so they were standing shoulder to shoulder, as Kirsty busied herself with the monitors on the other side of the bed.  
“How… David?”, Josh managed, having forced down a little more water.  
Toby smiled faintly.  
“I haven’t spoken to him yet but I am assured all is well.”  
“Go… go see him.”  
“We’re a little busy right now.”  
“I… be back soon.”  
Toby shot Donna an amused look.  
“I’m not so sure about that, buddy. You need to take it easy.”  
Josh nodded, but after a few more breaths he spoke up again.  
“Boring.”  
Toby chuckled, and Donna felt familiar words riding almost reflexively to her lips.  
“Only boring people get bored, Joshua. Give it a chance.”  
He pouted, and she giggled in spite of herself.  
Toby nodded, as though he’d seen enough to satisfy himself all was as well as could be.  
“I’ll be back soon, OK? Now do as you’re told.”  
Josh nodded, his eyes already drifting shut, and murmured “Bye.” The nurse was drawing blood and he didn’t even appear to have noticed. Donna got the feeling that these five minute interludes of wakefulness were about all they were going to get for a little while.  
Toby laid a hand on Josh’s shoulder for a moment, and then turned away, but instead of leaving, he nudged Donna and inclined his head towards the door.  
“I need to talk to you for a moment.”  
His expression made her eyes widen. She followed him into the hallway, and he handed her a sheaf of photocopies and printouts.  
“CJ told me she would kill me with her bare hands if I upset you, but I thought you needed to know. These are from various news sources over the last few hours.”  
He paused to give her a minute to look through the sheets of paper, and what she saw flooded her cheeks with colour.  
The photo of her and Josh, over and over, under the mastheads of the Washington Post, the New York and LA Times, gossip sites, foreign papers… She didn’t stop to read the captions, leafing through the stack until she came to a new photo, herself, stricken and unrecognisable, surrounded by Secret Service agents, CJ glaring off to one side. And then the final page, and how this had made it online and come to Toby’s attention in the short time between her arrival and his, she couldn’t fathom, but there she was, bent over the flowers outside the hospital, hand on her heart, tears on her cheeks.  
She hesitated before looking back up at Toby, unsure of what she would read in his face, but when she met his eyes she saw nothing but concern and compassion.  
“I’m so sorry, Donna. You don’t deserve this. Either of you. Especially not today, but not ever.”  
She looked down at the papers again, and the first few words she managed to decipher were from a gossip website she’d never even heard of: “slept her way into the White House”. That was all she needed to see. Cheeks burning, she thrust the pages back at Toby. Fighting the urge to hide her face from him, she spoke in an even tone.  
“Thank you for not asking.”  
“I don’t need to.”  
She raised her eyebrows at him.  
“I couldn’t possibly care less. Josh is…” Toby smirked. “Well, he’s Josh, and that’s useful to us. And you, Donna…” his expression softened, “you are invaluable. Anyone with half a brain can see that. Even if his judgement was impaired by sex, you deserve the job that he gave you.” She turned pinker still, and he laid a gentle hand on her arm. “But it wasn’t, was it?” He shook his head sadly.  
Surprised, all she could manage in response was to shake her head, mutely. He laid a hand on her arm.  
“I think…” He looked down and exhaled, his lips curving into the self-conscious smile that heralded one of his rare emotional pronouncements. “I think there is a lesson here about second chances, Donnatella.”  
And with a quick squeeze of her elbow, he was gone. She stared after him, lost in thought, heart thumping, until Kirsty the nurse emerged from the room behind her.  
“He’s in good shape, honey.”  
Donna smiled at her and went to look at the readouts for herself, making a note of the levels that the nurse had been happy with. 

\---

Worried about his reaction, Donna waited until the last possible moment to show Josh the pictures and articles, which she’d asked Margaret to bring back once she’d recovered from her initial shock. Her file of clippings had grown and been divided and divided again, until she had subcategories organised by date and type of publication. On day four Josh had managed to sit up enough to see the TV, and after extensive negotiations she’d reluctantly agreed to turn it on.  
“Before we do that, though, I need to show you something.”  
As soon as she handed him the main file, the one with the initial run of photos in the main east coast papers, she felt guilty for not at least warning him sooner. But to her surprise, he barely showed any anger. When he looked up at her from the stack of pages, he was smiling.  
“I want a copy.”  
“Of the picture?”  
“Yeah. It’s great. You look…” he looked down at the picture and then back up at her. “I think radiant is the word.”  
She blushed, ducking her head so her hair hid her face.  
“I think they need to adjust your meds, Joshua.”  
He chuckled, letting it go.  
“Is everyone going nuts over this?”  
“Really nuts.”  
It was than that his expression hardened.  
“Has anyone been bothering you?”  
“I’ve been here all week.”  
He frowned.  
“Is that why you haven’t left?”  
“No! No, of course not. I wanted to be here when you woke up. To help look after you.”  
His expression brightened again, and he reached for her hand.  
“I’m glad you’re here.”  
“I’m glad you’re here, Josh.”  
He let out a huff, almost a laugh, as though surprised at her sentiment.  
“Me too.”  
He squeezed her hand.  
“Now please, for the love of God, can we be reconnected to civilisation before I lose my mind altogether?”  
Shaking her head with an exasperated smile, she turned on the television. They sat in silence, holding hands, Josh’s eyes getting wider and wider as the magnitude of the media frenzy around the shootings, the photos and allegations about his relationship with Donna, the chain of command during the President’s surgery, gun control and anti-terrorism legislation, was highlighted in sequence after sequence of blaring headlines, scathing commentary and over-edited footage. When the matter of the Secret Service not using the canopy was brought up, Josh started talking back at the talking heads, and Donna muted the TV after he tried to yell that the anchorman was a liar and started wheezing uncontrollably instead. Dropping the remote, she helped him sit up straighter and rubbed his back, wincing in sympathy as he flinched every time he inhaled, but she managed not to panic, slowly learning to trust he would get over these episodes faster and more easily with time. Once he’d settled back down she’d stood up and moved the folder of papers away.  
“Have I had any interview requests?”  
She made a sound that could have been a laugh, could have been a sigh.  
“Only from every news publication in the world.”  
“Tell CJ I’ll talk to Will McAvoy.”  
“From that cable show? Josh, no one watches that.”  
“They’ll watch this.”  
“He’s a Republican! He’s against gun control!”  
“And he’s a real bastard, and he knows Toby wrote the memo about the canopy, and he’s going to eviscerate him. But he’s been sleeping with his producer for years, so he won’t ask me about you.”  
Grimacing, she moved over to the table that had been brought in to accommodate the never-ending stream of gift baskets, flowers and cards. She fiddled absently with a stack of vintage baseball trading cards, a not-so-secretly heartfelt gag gift from Mike Casper, and took a deep, steadying breath. She didn’t want to add to his stress but she still hadn’t managed to untangle her feelings about the vitriolic coverage. She was acutely aware she was the subject of considerable speculation among both her worried friends and a much wider, less sympathetic circle, and the idea that anyone was paying attention to her while Josh had such a long recovery ahead, the President was still mostly confined to bed (under forceful protest, Leo had assured her with an exasperated smile) and the West Wing was in chaos, made her head spin.  
“You should talk to whoever you want to. To whoever will best get the message out, about making sure this can’t happen again.”  
He looked at her silently for a long time, concern playing across his features.  
“I don’t want you to have to deal with any more of this.”  
She bit back a bitter laugh.  
“It’s not going to go away just because you don’t talk about it, Josh. It’ll probably just make it worse.”  
He sighed.  
“I know.  
He patted the edge of the bed beside him, and waited until she’d relented and crossed the room back to him and perched on the stiff mattress. Ignoring his protesting muscles, he craned his head to look up at her.  
“The thing is, I don’t know what I would say, if they did ask.”  
Donna nodded slowly and slumped slightly next to him, looking away but reaching for his hand. She wasn’t sure what she wanted more from him – a staunch defence of her suitability for her job, or an acknowledgement that they were more to each other than boss and assistant. 

When CJ arrived around dinnertime the first thing she saw was the stack of printouts, the inescapable photograph prominent on every page. She heaved a sigh of relief.  
“Oh thank God. I’m no good at this sparing-the-worst nonsense.”  
Josh grinned at her.  
“I wouldn’t let anyone in the pool hear you say that.”  
She made a face at him and hugged him quickly, and then settled in the chair next to Donna’s, squeezing the younger woman’s shoulders. “I can hang out here for a bit if you want to go home, honey.”  
CJ hadn’t really expected her to acquiesce – thus far, she’d refused to leave Josh’s side for longer than it took to take a shower – but Donna stood up quickly and began haphazardly tossing a selection of items from around the room into her tote bag.  
“I’ll go home for a bit and swing by your place, Josh, OK?”  
“Uh… OK.”  
She smiled a little too brightly and dashed off, and as Josh’s brow creased in confusion CJ began to understand. She laid a consoling hand on his arm.  
“She’s had a lot to deal with, wonder boy.”  
He blinked.  
“I know. I think I said the wrong thing.”  
“Well, that’s hardly surprising.”  
She shrugged off her jacket and slipped off her shoes, propping her feet on the side of the bed.  
“Come on then. Tell me.”  
“I said I’d talk to McAvoy. I didn’t think he’d bring it up, he has that whole thing about private lives.”  
“That’s just cover for keeping everyone out of his. But Josh, this isn’t just gossip anymore, it’s front page news.”  
He sighed, and then gritted his teeth until the ache in his chest had subsided.  
“I guess. And she said I should talk to whoever—“  
“Daytime talk shows.”  
He looked aghast for a moment but let it go.  
“Whatever. I… I can’t tell. Is she upset about what people are saying? She… I mean, she’s been here the whole time, the nurses all know her, someone has to have picked up on that, and she doesn’t seem to care.”  
“It certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed.”  
“So what do I do?”  
She gave him a sympathetic smile.  
“It probably doesn’t feel like it right now, but you’re in a decent position to get your point across. We’ve already talked a bit about gun control advocacy, you could certainly touch upon privacy.”  
Josh shook his head.  
“It’s not a paparazzi shot, we were in the President’s entourage. And they haven’t uncovered anything, it’s all speculation!”  
Concerned he’d work himself up, CJ swung her legs down and stood, leaning over him and speaking reassuringly.  
“I know. But you have the right to a private life.”  
He nodded.  
“I know that. Right now hers is more important to me than mine.”  
“Well, if you ask almost anyone out there, those are one and the same.”  
He looked at her searchingly.  
“Thank you for not asking.”  
She smiled fondly.  
“Oh, I don’t need to. You’ve got a pretty bad poker face.”  
He chuckled, acknowledging the truth of her words, but unsure exactly what she meant she did or didn’t know about him and Donna. He knew their friends trusted him to do the right thing, but he realised that he didn’t know what the right thing was, anymore.

\---

The day Josh was discharged from hospital it was stifling out, but Donna opened all the windows in his apartment anyway. His empty, quiet home had upset her almost more than the mechanical cacophony of the hospital, and even though he could still hardly move without pain, having him home felt like a victory of motion over stillness – of air over dust.  
He’d been asleep for a little while and she tried to be quiet as she passed his room.  
“God, Donna.”  
Ah. Not asleep then.  
“I can’t even move and you’re wearing… that. No fair!”  
She couldn’t help it, she giggled. She was wearing her summer pyjamas – shorts and a tank top.  
“It’s pretty hot, Josh.”  
“You’re pretty hot.”  
She let it go, still not ready to tackle the seemingly insurmountable task of realigning their boundaries.  
“Someone’s feeling better.”  
She tried to sound admonishing but she was smiling too wide.  
“I am now. C’mere.”  
The cold air of the air conditioner hit her as she approached and she felt goose pimples forming on her skin. She folded her arms across her chest. She made a mental note to check whether it was meant to be quite so cool in his room – he was bare-chested save for the stark white dressing – but the heat from outside was so oppressive she’d had the dial turned way up. She smiled to herself, imagining what the press room gossipmongers and their bloodthirsty readers would make of the general lack of clothing in the room.  
He reached out and touched her leg and his hand felt searing. He splayed his fingers on the side of her thigh, but it was an innocent gesture – the only part of her he could reach.  
“What’s up?”  
He considered her for a moment, and squeezed her leg.  
“Nothing… I’m just… I’m glad you’re here.”  
Her expression softened and she unfolded her arms and ruffled his hair.  
“I’m glad you’re here, Josh.”  
He found her other hand with his.  
“Me too.”  
She looked at him carefully in the dim light. He was still smiling, and he was visibly more relaxed now that the long and painful process of getting him home from GW was over, but she still felt the need to stay close.  
“Want me to hang out in here for a bit?”  
He nodded. She perched on the edge of the bed, but he gestured to the space next to him.  
“Josh…”  
“I can’t move, remember?”  
“That’s not…”  
“There’s no one here, Donna. Just for a bit.”  
She felt quite sure that once she climbed into bed with him, sleeping arrangements would be set for the foreseeable future, but she just couldn’t make herself care about the reasons why she shouldn’t. She walked around the bed and slid over to lie next to him, propped up on her elbow. He touched a finger to her collarbone.  
“You should be off on a beach somewhere…”  
“Josh, if we weren’t here, we’d be at the office right now.”  
“Yeah…”  
“Besides, I don’t do well with beaches.”  
“You’re always bugging me to take you to Hawaii!”  
“I’d make an exception for Hawaii. But I just get covered in freckles.”  
“Freckles are sexy.”  
“You should put out a memo.”  
“Don’t guys think freckles are sexy?”  
He looked so genuinely confused she wanted to hug him.  
“Not in my experience.”  
“You only date fools. Your freckles are sexy.”  
She didn’t think he’d ever really seen her after prolonged exposure to the sun – a metaphor for their working life if she ever heard one – but he was being too adorable to contradict. She reminded herself of the high dose of painkillers he was still on.  
“You should try and get some more sleep.”  
He pouted like a kid, but gamely closed his eyes.  
Even without looking, his hand found hers almost immediately, and came to rest against the side of her ribcage. Mike, one of his nurses, had advised Josh to concentrate on the rhythm of someone else’s breathing when he was having trouble with his own. He’d pointed out – not terribly politely - at the time that he couldn’t hear over the machines. Once they were alone she’d pulled his hand against her chest and held it there, so he could feel the rhythm of her breaths instead, and he’d fallen asleep almost instantly. She wasn’t sure if he could hear her breathing in the still unfamiliar quiet of his home, free of the hospital’s machines and constant interruptions, but she moved onto her back, shifting their hands onto her sternum, and watching them rise and fall as she inhaled and exhaled. 

Sure enough, two weeks later she hadn’t spent a single night on the couch. Josh started referring to his recovery period as their “unsubtle covert affair” and teased her mercilessly about how easy she was to get into bed. She gave as good as she got, finding him wholly accepting of barbs about his limited mobility, but on the nights he couldn’t sleep, when they talk quietly in the dark, he whispered that she was the reason he was getting better, that having her next to him is better than any medicine.  
Sometimes she wondered whether if holding your hand was the extent of the physical contact someone could manage, it wasn’t a bit like having sex. Especially if you were holding their hand and they were in bed with you half naked.  
Then, one night just after the temperature started dropping, he turned onto his side unaided. She heard the rustle of the sheets and opened her eyes to see him stretching gleefully, shifting his hips and tugging on his pillow. She grinned.  
“Look at you!”  
“Damn, that feels good.”  
“I bet.”  
She reached over and rubbed his arm and he caught her hand and tugged her towards him. He didn’t have the strength to actually move her at all but after hesitating for a moment she shifted closer. He smiled, and she watched him consider her mouth for a long moment before kissing her on the forehead.  
“Turn around.”  
“Josh…”  
“Donna, I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks.”  
There wasn’t so much as a hint of pleading in his voice. He was getting control back, and this wasn’t something he needed – it was something he wanted. She opted not to consider the implications of him giving her orders while they were in bed together.  
As she turned her back to him he bent the arm he’d stretched out under her neck, and drew it up and around her shoulders. He pinned her hips to his with his other hand splayed on her abdomen. She tried not to lean on him, wary of his newly exposed scar, but he whispered in her ear to relax. As she shifted her weight against him, he sighed contentedly, and it was the deepest breath he’d taken in weeks.  
“I’m really going to miss having you all to myself like this.”  
The thought made her want to cry, but it was so wonderful that he was getting better, and going back to the way things were was what they’d been working towards.  
“Me too. But I’m so glad you’re doing so much better.”  
And suddenly she was sobbing, letting out the fear and frustration and rage she’d been carrying around while she focused on his recovery.  
He didn’t seem entirely surprised, and he didn’t try to get her to stop crying. He crooned into her hair and twined their arms together, laying his hands on hers and holding tight until her sobs finally subsided.  
“I’m sorry.”  
“No, no, please… don’t apologise.”  
Gently, he tilted her head back alongside his and kissed her on the cheek. She started to roll away from him but he held her back.  
“It’s OK. It’s worth some pins and needles.”  
They lay in the semi-darkness, playing with each other’s fingers against her belly and breathing together. She felt herself drifting, not to sleep exactly, but away from the crushing worry about his recovery that had dominated her exhausting days and wakeful nights. She twisted a little in his arms, about to check whether he’d gone to sleep, when his breath hitched and she felt his hips twitch.  
Her eyes widened.  
He was unmistakably aroused, his erection pressing gently against the swell of her ass. He seemed to be trying to hold his hips away from her without letting go – and then she knew he’d noticed her holding her breath because he was, too. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, let him freak out about this. It was natural, reflexive, and it was good news – his body was doing pretty much what it was meant to.  
She squeezed his hand and tried to keep her voice steady.  
“It’s OK, Josh.”  
He let out a deep breath.  
“I’m sorry.”  
And she echoed his words back to him.  
“Don’t apologise. Relax. It’s OK. It’s a reflex.”  
She was blushing so hard her face was burning.  
“It’s not.”  
She bit her bottom lip and quashed an impulse to get away and pretend this never happened. She was relieved when he explained before she had to ask, even though she wasn’t sure she could handle hearing it.  
“I mean, it is a reflex. But you’re not just… it’s not just… It’s you. It’s not just the …stimulation. You… you look amazing. And you smell really good. And this… it feels… really nice. And I know we’re not supposed to, and I don’t want to take advantage…”  
She thought she might cry again. She couldn’t bring herself turn around. If she had, she’d have looked at him, and then she’d have told him to close his eyes, and then she’d have touched him, and then everything would have changed. The boundaries may have blurred, but they were still there, all the more treacherous for blending into the background.  
“Josh.”  
He took a deep, shuddering breath, and gave up trying to tilt his hips away from her. She revelled for a moment in the sensation of him pressed against her, in the possibilities, however forbidden, and the tangible evidence of what she’d known all along. Then she gathered herself, and slid out of his arms and off the bed.  
The noise he made almost sounded like a sob.  
“I’m staying right here, don’t worry.”  
She circled the room, and returned to the bed from the other side. Moving as carefully as she could, she mirrored his earlier position behind her, and he lifted his head to she could slide her arm under it and around his shoulders without her having to ask. For once, she was glad to be as tall as him.  
Keeping both hands resolutely at chest level, she gave him a gentle squeeze and a quick kiss on the shoulder.  
“There.”  
“Thank you for not freaking out.”  
She kept her tone light.  
“There’s nothing to freak out about. It’s kind of flattering, and you were a gentleman about it.”  
He laughed quietly.  
“I don’t feel very gentlemanly right now.”  
“I’m pretty sure even cads and ruffians have to sleep eventually.”  
“I don’t feel very sleepy either.”  
“I didn’t think you did.”  
“This feels really nice, too.”  
She smiled into his hair.  
“It does.”  
“Not just in a sexy way.”  
She couldn’t help it; she giggled, and it was the best thing she could have done because he laughed too, and let out a big breath, and she felt him relaxing.  
“Donna.”  
“I’m right here.”  
“When I… when I get back to work.”  
“Soon.”  
“Yeah… when I get back to work, I don’t want to go back to only seeing you in the office.”  
She froze. They’d never only seen each other at the office, what with the Hawk and Dove with Sam and the others, walking home the long way so they were both nearly halfway before their paths diverged, and the times he showed up drunk at her apartment in the middle of the night. But she knew what he meant.  
She took a deep breath.  
“Josh, we can’t.”  
He huffed in irritation. She was sure he knew they couldn’t, really, that he was just trying to express what he was feeling in a safer way than ‘I think I’m falling in love with you’, because she’d learned them from him, the reasons why they couldn’t.  
“I’m not sure I care so much about that anymore.”  
Suddenly, she could feel her pulse in her throat. She opened her mouth, but he spoke again before she could collect her wits.  
“There’s something I can’t stop thinking about. And I haven’t said anything because I thought it might be… I don’t know, the shock or something, a weird kind of survival instinct thing.”  
Almost as though he could sense her brow furrowing behind him, he shifted again, moving onto his back so he could see her.  
“I don’t know if you could tell, but I was conscious… for a while. I was disoriented, but I didn’t pass out completely until they put me under in the ER…”  
She clutched his hand like a lifeline and she must have looked absolutely devastated because he pulled her against him. She hid her face against his shoulder and tried to block out the memory of him, wide-eyed and terrified, bleeding and asking for her as she struggled to catch up. They hadn’t talked about it before, and she still didn’t quite know whether to tell him what he’d said. Before she could reach a decision, he squeezed her tight for a moment and spoke again.  
“I’m sorry, I’m just trying to explain… it’s a blur, I was talking but I was out of it, but I knew what was happening and… I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”  
She’d begun to shake and he rubbed her back, curling into her and crooning into her hair.  
“Donna, Donna, it’s OK, I’m OK now. And it can’t have been that bad if I remember, can it?”  
She lifted her head and gave him a weak smile, opting to keep his flashback to her temporary desertion to herself for the time being. He nuzzled her forehead for a moment.  
“I thought it was bad though. I thought I was dying. And I thought about the night my father died, and about what I said to Jed…”  
It was the first time she’d ever heard him refer to the President by his first name only, and it made her smile more and he ploughed on.  
“…About my Dad wanting grandkids. And I realized that even though I’d never really planned to have a family of my own… Somehow I always expected I would, in the end. And one of the things I was sad about, in those ten minutes or however long it was, was not getting to experience that. I was glad, though, that I wasn’t leaving a bunch of kids behind. I… it’s bad enough losing a parent when you’re an adult… But I made it, and now I can’t stop thinking about it.”  
He tucked her hair behind her ear so he could see her face better. She blinked at him, struggling to hang on to her composure.  
“And when I picture myself having a family, it’s with you. Every time.”  
He ducked his head with those last words and even though she knew it must have been killing him not to know how she was reacting, she was grateful for the few moments to harness her rampaging emotions. She closed her eyes, and willed her heart, hammering in her chest, to steady.  
“Josh, even when they didn’t know whether you’d live or die, even when they didn’t know if we were under attack, even before they’d caught the shooter, that photo - in which we’re doing nothing incriminating, by the way… it caused a scandal.”  
She was glad, then, for his argumentative streak – he launched straight into a rebuttal without pausing to look hurt.  
“That was because they couldn’t get away with attacking the President at that point. And they would have looked into my personal life then anyway.”  
“Even if the President hadn’t been shot, Josh, you’re the one who has to go to the Hill and make the deals. They’d hold something like this over your head forever.”  
He tried another tack.  
“You don’t think they’re not going to hold it over my head anyway? You’ll have been seen coming in and out of here every day, everyone knows you’ve been sleeping here, what difference does it make?”  
“We’d know we were telling the truth when we denied it!”  
“I wouldn’t want to deny it!”  
For a moment she couldn’t speak, frozen under the intensity of his gaze, gradually adjusting to the newfound certainty of the depth of his feelings. She swallowed, closing her eyes for a moment, tears clinging to her eyelashes.  
“I don’t know that it’s up to us.”  
“It’s our life, Donna.”  
His use of the singular nearly undid her, but she summoned the last shreds of her determination.  
“You nearly gave your life for this Presidency, Josh. I don’t think we should jeopardise it now.”  
He shook his head, smiling ruefully.  
“You’re the most important thing in the world to me, Donna, but I don’t think anyone else cares so much that this would bring down the Presidency.”  
“That’s just it, though. It’s because they don’t care. Don’t care about you, or me, or our life together, or our family if we have one. They’d use the story to eat away at President Bartlet’s influence, and then move on to the next thing.”  
He recognised the truth in her words, but as chilling a picture as she was painting, he felt buoyed by her unconscious adoption of his words: “Our life.” That was enough for him, for now. He ran a gentle hand over her head, smoothing down her hair, and then nudged her cheek until she relaxed against his shoulder. Leaning into her, he lowered his voice to a whisper.  
“We don’t need to talk about it right now. You should get some sleep.”  
He felt her nodding, and held his breath, afraid she’d start crying again, but she just nuzzled his shoulder, shifting around until she was lying on her stomach next to him, one hand on his chest.  
“I’m glad you’re here,” he murmured, a declaration of love in the words they were permitting themselves for now.  
“I’m glad you’re here,” she echoed back, her voice almost indistinct already.

\---

The next day, Josh was half dozing on the couch, thinking that his back hurt and he should move, but that his head ached too much for him to open his eyes, when he heard Donna giggle, and then moments later make the little gasping noise he’d come to associate with her starting to cry and trying not to let him hear. Concerned, he opened his eyes and sat up, ignoring the pain in his chest and his head.  
“Are you OK?”  
When she looked up at him there were tears in her eyes but she was smiling.  
“Zoey and Charlie sent over a bunch of the get-well letters you’ve been getting.”  
He groaned. Every elected official in the western world had dispatched a blandly tasteful card post-haste – half of them accompanied with calculatedly casual handwritten notes by their subordinates, more or less brazenly angling for his job.  
“What are Charlie and Zoey doing reading those?”  
“Margaret must have passed around some of the funny ones.”  
“Funny ones?”  
“This one’s from a kid in Chicago. Wanna hear?”  
“Kids are sending me cards?”  
“All kinds of people are sending you cards. This one’s really sweet.”  
“If you say so.”  
Donna ignored him and started reading.  
“Dear Mr Lemon. My Mom says you got hurt really bad. I hope it didn’t sting too bad when the nurse put the stuff on it. I hate that.”  
Josh couldn’t help it, he chuckled.  
“She said you must be really bored in the hospital and that you wouldn’t have cool stuff to do like we do in the kids’ room so I’m writing to you so you won’t be bored. Maybe you can go to the kids’ room in your hospital and play video games there. Your girlfriend is really pretty. You guys should come visit if you’re ever at Comer. You can play our video games then.”  
“Comer?”  
“It’s the children’s hospital at the University of Chicago.”  
Josh was silent for a moment.  
“He’s sick?”  
Donna nodded, her eyes welling with tears again.  
“There’s a note from his Mom. He has leukaemia.”  
“And he wrote to me?”  
“She says he was really excited for you to get better.”  
Josh’s eyes stung and he tried to gulp down a deep breath, wincing as the muscles in his chest protested. He was long past the point of being embarrassed about crying in front of Donna, but it hurt if he really got going, and he’d already melted down after physical therapy, which is why he’d been taking a nap in the first place. After a moment he managed to steady his voice.  
“Did he write anything else?”  
Donna took a deep breath.  
“I wish you hadn’t got hurt. I’m sorry that happened to you.”  
She trailed off and pressed a hand to her mouth. When she spoke again her voice was husky with tears.  
“My Mom and me and the nurses and my sister all prayed for you.”  
She held his gaze for a long moment, tears falling unchecked, and he suddenly felt a tremendous responsibility to not just get better, but be better, live up to the hope and faith these people had devoted to his recovery.  
She wiped her eyes and then giggled again.  
“Do you like Batman? He would’ve stopped the bad guys that hurt you. My sister says that Batman isn’t real, that there’s something called physics that means he can’t fly. She said they wouldn’t catch your bad guys though and they did. High five, your buddy, Jake.”  
Josh held out his hand and Donna handed him the letter but he put that down in his lap and reached out again, and she shifted closer and twined her fingers through his. They sat in silence for a moment, contemplating a life where the daily rituals they were still learning to adjust to even as they were coming to an end – medication, dietary restrictions, checkups and tests – were all you could remember and possibly all you would ever know. Josh read the carefully penned page again, smiling to himself at the small boy’s pronouncement about Donna.  
“He doesn’t seem to have a problem with you being my girlfriend.”  
“Josh, he doesn’t even know who I am. I’m just the blonde lady in the picture with you.”  
“The pretty blonde lady.”  
She smiled.  
“It’s not six year old boys from Chicago we have to worry about.”  
“Fifty-something Chiefs of Staff from Chicago?”  
“One in particular, and a number of other people. You know.”  
He huffed in frustration.  
“I don’t, actually. The press have backed off without us ever having to clarify one way or the other.”  
“Josh…”  
He held up his hands.  
“I know. But you know how I feel.”  
She pushed herself up on her knees so she was nearly level with him, and he saw a storm of emotions cross her face.  
“I feel… I feel the same way. I mean about you. You know I do.” She looked at him pleadingly and he laid a reassuring hand against her cheek. “I don’t… I just still can’t accept the risks. We still have too much work to do.”  
He closed his eyes for a moment, sighing deeply. He shared her concerns, at least up to a point, but he couldn’t move on from the fact that he when he thought was going to die, he’d caught a glimpse of a future he thought was slipping through his fingers, and now that he was alive and almost well, he couldn’t fathom the idea of letting it go. He was determined not to pressure her into anything she wasn’t ready for, though, and he forced himself back into the moment, lifting Jake’s letter from his lap.  
“Can we write back?”  
She smiled.  
“Of course we can.”  
“Good. Grab my laptop. I want to do some research – I don’t think there’s any reason why Batman couldn’t fly.”  
She was still smiling, but she raised her eyebrows incredulously.  
“You want to argue physics with this kid’s sister? Who is probably, like, eight?”  
“I think it’s possible that something that most people don’t think can fly, actually can.”  
He looked at her pointedly, and she shook her head with a fond smile.  
“Oh, that was nice. That was a little parable right there.”  
He made a face at her.  
“Whatever it takes, Donnatella.”  
She wrinkled her nose at him, but she was still smiling.  
“I’m not sure that was your best effort, there, Romeo.”  
He grinned, and then affected a mournful look.  
“Well, I’m not at my best right now. Which is why really, I want you to argue physics with this kid’s sister. I need my strength for other things.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.  
Rolling her eyes at him, she went to get his laptop, but when she came back she sat next to him on the couch, and didn’t comment when he put his arm around her. He used the excuse of reading over her shoulder to lean in close – inwardly mocking himself for being unable to get enough of her even though he, for now at least, got to sleep next to her every night – but eventually found himself distracted by the articles she was scrolling through. After he’d halted her clicking three or four times, she relinquished control of the keyboard and just sat, enjoying the feeling of him nestled against her, wondering how much longer she could possibly resist this man who was currently trying to prove to a sick little boy half a country away that Batman might be real after all. 

After Donna had typed up a reply to Jake - complete with assurances that the laws of physics allowed for a cape-sized one-man flying machine, and hints that the technology already existed which Josh was pretty sure would get him fired if they were made to anyone other than a sick seven-year-old - Josh hit upon a plan to give Donna some space.  
"You know, it would be cool if this was printed on White House letterhead."  
She took the bait so quickly he suspected she'd been looking for an out, and after hastily changing into a black shift dress he had to fight the urge to describe as devastating, she rushed off. She only reminded him when to take his medication four times, which he considered progress after the chart she'd colour-coded for him before the last time she'd spent the day in the West Wing.  
He lasted five minutes without her, and then called his Mom and poured his heart out. Rachel listened sympathetically, never once interrupting or offering advice until he specifically asked for it. He loved that about her, but he didn't even know what advice to ask for.  
So he asked her, instead, what she would have done if his father hadn't wanted to marry her.  
She fell silent for a long while.  
"I don't know, bubbala," she'd answered eventually, "but he told me once what he'd have done if I hadn't wanted to marry him."  
"And what was that?"  
"He'd have given me references."  
"He... What?"  
"He had all these people, friends, family, colleagues, temple folks, ready to vouch for him."  
A light went off in Josh's brain.  
"I have to go, Mamme."  
Mrs Lyman chuckled.  
"I thought you might, Joshua. Be well. I love you."  
"I love you too."  
He hit the button to end the call with such force he nearly dropped the phone, and then dialled the first White House extension he could think of.  
"Carol, it's Josh, put me through."  
"Actually, she's--"  
"Put me through. Please."  
Something in his tone must have caught her attention, because he heard her calling out to her boss as she transferred the call.  
"Is everything OK, Josh?"  
His words tumbled out in a rush.  
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Except that I... I... The papers are right. I'm in love with her. What the hell, I mean you knew that, right? And we didn't do anything, I swear, but CJ, I nearly died, I really think I nearly did, because I saw my future, and it was her, CJ, it was all with her... And I told her and I think I screwed up, I didn't say it right, because she feels the same way, I know she does... You know she does, I know you do... But she's scared. Of what people will say. And I'm scared too, hell, I'm scared of what people have said already, of what that'll do when I come back. But not half as scared as I am of losing her. I know it's a problem, I know it's already a nightmare for you, but don't be the Press Secretary for a minute... You're my friend, you're our friend, CJ, you have to tell her it's going to be OK. She's coming in now, she's probably in my office, CJ, you have to talk to her."  
There was a long silence, and then he heard CJ exhale. And then there was another, tremulous voice on the line.  
"Josh, it's me."  
He sank onto the couch, clutching the phone to his ear, unable to speak. He'd poured his heart out, all he could do now was wait.  
"I..." he heard her sniff, and cursed his catastrophic timing. "Josh, I was here to warn CJ that I was going to... I mean that we were going to..."  
She trailed off, and he could picture her blushing and twisting her hands together, lost for words, but that was all he needed to hear. He let out the breath he’d been holding.  
"Just come home, OK? CJ, I..."  
"It's alright, mi amor. Call me tomorrow, let me know when's good to come by, OK?"  
"You bet."  
She disconnected the call then, but he didn't move for a long while.  
Soon after he finally set the phone down, he heard Donna's key in the lock. In the ten seconds it took her to open the door, he cycled through every possible emotion - relief, joy, excitement, desire, fear - but the one that penetrated the fog in his brain was the last thing he wanted for this moment: exhaustion. He fleetingly registered that it was hardly surprising that the first thing to make him completely forget about his injury had been confronting his feelings about Donna, but he suddenly realised he was in no shape, physically or mentally, to get a fledgling relationship off the ground in any meaningful way.

\---

When Donna walked into the apartment, she found him standing behind the couch, looking at her with the expression of a small boy who thought he'd finally grown tall enough for the roller coaster only to not quite measure up. She quietly pushed the door shut, and stood on the threshold, looking him up and down.  
"Oh, Josh."  
He just blinked at her.  
"You get that we don't actually have to do anything, right? I mean, not just..." she trailed off, blushing, and took a deep breath. "I mean, you're in no shape to go out on a date, and you can only eat, like, five things, and if we put on a movie you'll go to sleep."  
He exhaled, relieved she understood.  
"We could talk, though."  
She smiled.  
"That'll be nice. But, Josh, we're both going to need a lot more therapy before we can tackle any big decisions." She stepped out of her shoes and rounded the couch, stepping over to him. The sight of her bare feet, as delicate and graceful as the rest of her, nearly undid him, but she twined the fingers of one hand with his and laid the other on his chest, steadying him.  
"For now, that we love each other and want to make this work is going to have to do."  
He reached to touch her face, a look of complete wonder in his eyes.  
"That's already huge."  
She laughed softly and moved closer, her arm sliding around his waist.  
"The second part is. I don't think the first part is really news to anyone, is it?"  
He shook his head, smiling.  
"It's still amazing."  
She nodded in agreement and closed the final distance between them, pressing her lips to his. It was chaste and gentle but it carried so much promise he felt his heart start beating faster. As she pulled away he followed her, kissing her again, and then again. After a while he just rested his forehead against hers and breathed deep, ignoring the ache in his chest. He felt her tremble under his hands and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, holding her as tightly as he could muster. As he felt her relax he turned his head towards her, nuzzling her jaw, and she giggled. He leaned back and searched her face.  
“You OK?”  
She beamed at him.  
“I really am. You?”  
“You bet I am.”  
For a minute they just grinned at each other, disbelieving, in no hurry to do anything other than savour this new closeness. Donna’s smile softened as she ran a gentle hand up and down his side.  
“How’s your back?”  
He considered lying, to prolong the moment, but was acutely aware that nothing but complete honesty was going to get them through the challenges ahead.  
“It’s pretty stiff.”  
“Off to bed with you, then.”  
He smirked at her.  
“That’s it? No flowers, no champagne? You’re just going to have your way with me?”  
She made a face at him and nudged him in the direction of his bedroom. 

Donna had become adept at helping him without really seeming to, and her gentle arm around his waist as she guided him down the hallway was no exception. Her casually affectionate manner had been a balm to his shaken soul, but now he felt a rush of doubt. Had he mistaken her naturally caring demeanour for something more? She'd just said she loved him, but she'd seen him get shot and watched him fight for his life - were her emotions clouded? Come to that, were his? Was he about to throw his career away for a crush exacerbated by trauma and dependence? By the time they reached the foot of his bed he was almost paralysed by indecision.

Donna sensed Josh slipping away from her - not physically, he was leaning on her more heavily with every step, even as his feelings ran away with him - and felt her own resolve strengthen in response. They'd done this dance a million times. He'd have a brilliant idea, convince her to help him, and then become consumed by doubt. It was her job to remind him of his own enthusiasm, and she was good at it. She deliberately slowed the familiar motions of settling him into bed, letting her touch linger, trying to reassure him without words. He followed her with his gaze as she moved around the room, looking almost pleading, but she didn't speak until she stretched out beside him, her hand finding his without looking.

"Josh, do you remember what happened just before the shooting?"  
He gave her a confused look.  
"Even if I didn't, I've seen a million photos."  
"Yes. And you know why people are talking about it."  
"They think..." he suddenly remembered what they'd been talking about when the now infamous picture had been taken, and his face relaxed into a smile. "They think I'm schtupping my assistant."  
"Yes they do."  
He took a deep breath, not really all that surprised that she'd guessed his feelings so precisely.  
"We looked like we wanted to schtup even before I nearly died."  
She giggled.  
"According to, oh, everyone, we've looked like that for a long time now."  
"I waited for you, that night, you know."  
Her face fell.  
"I know. I've thought a thousand times that you'd be OK if you hadn't."  
He squeezed her hand.  
"I'd far rather it was me that got hurt than anyone else. Than you. If you'd been by yourself back there..." he shook his head to erase the image. It was too devastating to contemplate. He clung to her hand like a lifeline. "You weren't even supposed to be there that night."  
"I'm glad I was."  
He exhaled.  
"I... I wish I wasn't, because I wish you hadn't had to see that, but I'm glad you were there too. When I couldn't see you, I..." He was growing agitated just at the thought, and she shifted closer, laying a hand on his chest.  
"Shhhh, shhhh... It's OK. I'm here. I was there the whole time, I just couldn't keep up for the gurney for a bit. But I was there."  
He smiled.  
"Yeah. I think I remember. You shoved a bunch of doctors out of the way."  
She giggled.  
"Damn right. I wouldn’t have stopped for anyone." Seeing him relaxed again, she decided to tell him what she'd heard him say. "You thought I'd gone to Wisconsin. I mean, you thought you were back in New Hampshire, when I'd gone back to Wisconsin."  
He gave her a long, searching look.  
"I'm not surprised," he said finally. "I think about that a lot."  
"Really?" She couldn't keep the surprise from her tone.  
"I just... I think I know you pretty well by now, but I still can't figure that out."  
She bit her lip, and took a deep breath, considering her answer carefully.  
"You know what you said last night?” she finally asked, “About realising you did want a family?"  
He nodded, searching her face.  
"Well, I've always wanted that. It's why... Well, it's one of the reasons I stayed with him for so long in the first place." She paused, inhaled deeply again. "And I loved working on the campaign, loved working with you... But as I got to know you all better I realised that… that those priorities weren't even on anyone's radar, and it scared me. I guess I wasn't quite ready to let go of those... Of that future. But then I went back and..." She closed her eyes, still ashamed of herself, even now. When she spoke again, her voice was harder. "It became abundantly clear that even if he'd wanted that future with me, it would have been pretty miserable." She searched his face, trying to gauge his reaction. "And I missed you so much."  
He nodded.  
"I missed you too."  
Then he looked away, suddenly shy.  
"Did you... I mean, have you ever..." he made himself look at her again, and his bashful expression tugged at her heart. "Did you ever begin to imagine that future, for us? I mean, with me?"  
She nodded emphatically, tears in her eyes.  
"I thought it would only ever be a fantasy," she whispered. "I thought it was something I'd have to give up to be with you."  
His face took on an expression of such sorrow that she began to cry in earnest, and he pulled her against his shoulder, ignoring the pain in his side as he lifted his arm.  
"I would never have asked you to do that. It's why I didn't... why I haven't... I didn't think I had that ahead of me, I didn't think I had it in me to put life ahead of work."  
She drew in a shuddering breath against his neck.  
"I'd have done it."  
"I... I think I knew that, on some level. And I didn't feel worthy of it."  
"Don't say that."  
"I really didn't. But here's the thing..."  
She pushed herself up on her arm so he could see her face again, smiling, and he got the feeling she'd guessed what he was about to say.  
"What's the thing?"  
"I think I am now. Because I love you, and I will love you, more and better than anyone else ever could. It's a mortal lock, Donna."  
She smiled wider at the quaint phrase, and bent down to kiss his cheek. He lifted his hand to run it through her hair and sighed.  
"I'm afraid some aspects of the better loving might have to wait, though."  
She giggled.  
"It's OK, Josh. You'll be better soon."  
And then she shot him a look he'd never seen before, one he hoped to see again as often as possible.  
"And you know," she practically purred, "I've been doing a little research." She rose up onto her knees. "Apparently, skin-to-skin contact can really speed up the healing process." And she pulled her dress off.

\---

The day of the Midterms dawned as inexplicably warm as the rest of fall so far, but Donna fussed until Josh reluctantly agreed to wear a jacket to go and vote. He’d had enough of a battle to be allowed out to cast his ballot in person, Donna only relenting when he’d pointed out he was heading back to the office in less than a week and that the West Wing would be less of a shock if he was re-introduced to civilization gradually. He strode along without a hint of discomfort in his gait, practically dragging her by the hand and grinning at everyone they saw with an “I voted” sticker.  
“Josh, you’re scaring people.”  
“Me? Nah. It’s a great day, Donna. Democracy in action.”  
She shook her head in mock exasperation.  
“The polls will be open for a while, yet. Slow down.”  
He opened his mouth to protest but changed his mind when he saw her face. She seemed nervous. He looked down at their clasped hands, and back up at her.  
“You don’t have to come with me, you know.”  
Her brow furrowed in consternation.  
“Don’t be silly. I want to.”  
He squeezed her hand.  
“We don’t have to, ah…”  
They hadn’t actually discussed how they would behave in public – or much else, really, about how things would work between them outside the confines of his apartment.  
She considered him carefully and then, reaching a decision, squeezed his hand back.  
“Let them talk.”  
He beamed, and took off at a more leisurely pace, enjoying the hazy sunshine and brilliant fall colours.  
“It’s a beautiful day.”  
She smiled.  
“It is.”  
“It feels good to be outdoors. I’ve missed this. I’m an outdoorsman.”  
She laughed outright.  
“You’re really not. You think nature is out to get you.”  
He glanced around.  
“This is an acceptable amount of nature. I’m an urban outdoorsman.”  
She quirked an eyebrow at him.  
“That sounds too cool to be credible.”  
“Are you saying I’m not cool?”  
“You, Joshua Lyman, are many things. Cool is not one of them.”  
“What does that say about you, then?”  
“That I’ve got my work cut out for me?”  
He grinned at that.  
“I look forward to it.”  
“Foolish man.”  
They reached the polling station and both breathed a little easier upon seeing there was no press. It was presumably late enough that most of the notables from the polling district had passed through already. Josh took his place in line and Donna whispered she was going to get coffee – despite his pleading look he knew full well that really meant weak tea for him – and kissed him quickly on the cheek before slipping away.  
Alone in public for the first time since the shooting, Josh took a deep breath and looked around him.  
“Mr Lyman?”  
He flinched, and fought to regain his composure as he turned to an elderly lady who had just joined the line behind him.  
“It is you. Oh, I’m so glad to see you up and about. We were so worried about you, dear.”  
He was so taken aback he forgot his manners for a moment and then hastily stuck out his hand.  
“Thank you so much, ma’am. It’s good to be out. Nice to meet you.”  
She squeezed his hand with both of hers, smiling, but before she could respond a young man in a suit had patted him on the back.  
“God bless you, man!”  
Josh shook a dozen hands and signed a peculiar assortment of items, including one he was quite sure was a ballot paper, before getting to vote. By the time Donna returned, he was proudly adorned with a sticker of his own, and surrounded by well-wishers. She hung back, watching amused as a gaggle of students peppered him with questions. He posed for a photo, offered a couple of book recommendations, reminded them to tell their friends to vote and then said his goodbyes, pausing to shake hands with a young mother and make a face at her toddler. Donna was suddenly overwhelmed with a different vision for the future than the quiet domesticity they’d whispered about during the past months’ wakeful nights. His irascible manner notwithstanding, Josh was a natural politician, and now a national hero. She smiled ruefully, reminding herself again that the bittersweet end of their long summer of quiet comfort and intimacy signalled a new beginning for them both.  
He must have picked up on her mood as he rejoined her, silently taking his cup, finding her hand and setting off for home. She’d been going to suggest a detour, a stroll on the Mall, but suddenly she wanted to get back to the privacy of his apartment.  
He noted she was walking faster but matched her pace without comment. She looked troubled but smiled reassuringly whenever he caught her eye, and he trusted they’d get to the bottom of it in good time. He knew they had a lot to talk about – and soon, with him due back to the office in six short days.

By the time they got home he was forced to acknowledge he was ready for a nap, and he didn’t resist when she gently suggested he actually go to bed rather than crashing on the couch. He dozed off to the sound of her bustling around the apartment, preparing to welcome their friends for the evening.

He awoke to the familiar sound of CJ’s laughter, and smiled to himself as he got up and padded into the bathroom. He considered changing his clothes but decided he’d make the most of his last week playing the invalid. He was straightening the sheets when Donna appeared, grinning, holding a beer. He made a grab for it but she evaded him easily, setting it down out of reach before stepping in for a kiss.  
“CJ was here, she’s going to pick up takeout. Sam and Toby are on their way.”  
He nodded, looking forward to the evening ahead.  
“Any news?”  
“Nothing much yet. It’s going to be close.”  
“No kidding.”  
He trailed behind her into the kitchen, taking in her careful preparations for welcoming their guests.  
“Can we sit outside?”  
“On the stoop? What’s got into you?”  
“It’s a lovely night. I’m an outdoorsman!”  
She rolled her eyes at him.  
“We can sit outside if you wear a coat and you stop saying that.”  
“OK, but only because you don’t get to make the rules after next week.”  
She quirked an eyebrow at him.  
“That’s what you think.”  
He chuckled, and pulled her to him, resting his hands on her hips and studying the details of her face. It was a testament to how comfortable they’d become that she didn’t fidget or look away under his gaze, watching him steadily until he’d had his fill and leaned in. He bumped her nose with his and then kissed her as she giggled, sliding his arms up her back to loop around her shoulders.  
“I don’t mind your rules really.”  
She gave him her best mock-shocked expression.  
“Can I get that in writing?”  
“Not a chance.”  
She cuffed him lightly on the arm and then stepped out of his embrace.  
“Speaking of writing, I’ve got something to show you.”  
Curious, he followed her to the couch. She settled beside him and picked a colourful card off the coffee table.  
“Jake wrote you back.”  
His face lit up. She handed it to him but he stilled her hand.  
“Would you read it to me?”  
She smiled and nodded, and leaned towards him so he could see the paper.  
“Dear Josh, that’s so cool that you wrote back to me, I mean thank you. That was very kind. I’m really glad you’re OK now. And hey guess what? I got to go home too. We don’t have video games at home but that’s OK because I get to hang out with my sister. She liked your letter too.” Donna giggled and trailed off and then affected a comical, clownish voice, pointing to the capital letters on the page to underscore the young boy’s enthusiasm. “THE BATMAN STUFF YOU TOLD ME WAS SO COOL.” They both laughed, and he kissed the side of her head. “My Mom got me a book, it’s really neat.”  
Her voice grew more serious, and Josh recalled the emotions of Jake’s last letter.  
“I wish I could go back to school, I’d do a report about it. We don’t have time to do reports when I do school with Mom.” Donna smiled sadly. “Please can you say thank you to Mr The President for his letter.”  
“The President wrote to him?”  
She smiled.  
“I spread the word. And I wrote to his Mom and sent them some stuff.”  
He smiled at her and hugged her close.  
“Thank you.”  
She nodded against his chest and then straightened up and read on.  
“I didn’t want to bug him but I wanted to write you back to say well done for getting better. It’s hard getting better. Way to go.” Donna pressed a hand to her mouth and he squeezed her shoulders, taking the letter from her and finishing it himself.  
“I’m going back to Comer tomorrow, the chemo is going to make me too sick to be home. Will you pray for me? We prayed for you and it worked so that would be awesome.” Josh took a deep, shuddering breath, fighting tears. His faith had been left in tatters by the actions of madmen, but Jake’s letters – and the people he’d met at the polling station – had made him realise that he’d been buoyed by the belief of countless others. Looking down at his healed chest and the woman in his arms, he realised he was a living breathing parable.  
“My Mom says hi, and to say hi to Donna. High five, your buddy, Jake.”  
Setting the letter down he hugged Donna again.  
“Hi,” he whispered.  
She giggled.  
“Hi yourself.”  
“I’m glad you’re here.”  
She smiled, and ran her hand through his unruly curls.  
“I’m glad you’re here.”  
“Come on, let’s go sit on the stoop.”  
He hauled himself off the couch, grabbing his coat without being prompted, and she pulled a six pack from the fridge. They stepped outside just as Sam and Toby started up the steps, and CJ joined them as Donna was handing round beers, sinking onto the middle step with a dramatic sigh.

Josh revelled in the company of his comrades, delighting in flustering CJ over her gift of comically oversized pyjamas and in seeing Donna comfortable by his side, surrounded by their friends. Even Sam’s announcement of the unlikely results couldn’t dent his mood, and his heart soared as they drank a toast to their crazy, unpredictable country. They clinked bottles, and exchanged smiles, enjoying the moment, until Sam turned back towards the street.  
“Hey, did you see anyone get in that car?”  
A silver sedan was pulling out of a spot halfway up the street. Toby straightened up, a thunderous look on his face. The car drew towards them, going almost comically slowly, and for a moment they detected a flurry of movement inside.  
“Yeah, that’s a photographer.”  
CJ leaned back on the steps, a defiant smile on her face. Toby shook his head and looked away, and Sam stood, indecisive, but Josh turned towards Donna and made a split second decision. Looking into her eyes and smiling reassuringly, he tugged her hand until she moved up a step. He slipped an arm around her shoulders and then laughed when the car blatantly stopped, just a few feet from the bottom of the steps. Sam look horrified, but Josh turned back to Donna, a question in his eyes. She hesitated for a moment then broke into an indulgent smile and nodded. Josh flashed a grin directly at the lens, now visible through a partially open window, and then leaned down and kissed her soundly.

There was a click and a flash, and then another, and another.

CJ whooped and Toby chuckled, and Sam gave the photographer a jaunty wave. Josh kissed Donna again for good measure, an irrefutable public proclamation.

**Author's Note:**

> [Back cover art!](http://i47.tinypic.com/nq1k5e.png)
> 
>  
> 
> (By [speakfree](http://speakfree.tumblr.com) \- how clever is she, yo?)
> 
> Thanks for hanging in there, y'all. Feedback is coveted, pored over and cooed at.


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